Among these were two which he later illustrated.2 He placed them in the types of watermarks designated “Figure” under the reference numbers 1348 and 1349, Plate 198, and listed as their source “C[hristopher] Saxton County Atlas, London no date.” In his introduction under the section “Watermarks from a Regional Standpoint, Italy,” Heawood refers to these watermarks as a “kneeling saint holding a cross” which was almost the same description—a kneeling figure with a cross—he had used twenty years earlier.3 At that time he considered the watermark to be “certainly” of Italian origin and gave as a reference Briquet’s number 7628–9. These were included by Briquet in the type designated simply “Homme” (man) but in his text they are described as “Saint nimbé, une croix à la main, s’agenouillant” (saint with a halo, a cross in hand, kneeling). These two watermarks are noted as being in papers used at Fabriano in 1602 and in Rome in 1566 but, though closely related to Heawood’s 1348 and 1349, they are not identical with them (see figures 1-4). Note in particular the differing shapes of the surrounding shields and the arm which holds the cross. The eminent Italian filigranists Aurelio and Augusto Zonghi have also recorded a similar but not identical kind of watermark; the Zonghis describe them as a figure holding a cross, nimbé (that is, crowned with a nimbus or halo).4 The date of the document in which these watermarks occur is 1599. The watermarks reproduced in Briquet, Zonghi, and Heawood are, of course, produced from tracings or eye drawings and all must suffer thereby in varying degrees from this first step in transmission. It is known, for example, in the case of Briquet that as he became more and more engrossed in his formidable task of collecting watermarks, he took less and less care of himself and his health. Forced frequently to trace watermarks in badly lighted rooms, the strain on his eyes took its toll; slowly darkness enveloped him, turning all his days into eternal night. No such ill fate befell Zonghi or Heawood; nevertheless, the latter gives a vivid account of the “difficulties encountered in making copies of marks and the extent to which they have been overcome.”5 Tracing from books, frequently tightly bound and heavily printed, he declared, “must always be difficult even when having carried out in the peace of a private room with suitable lighting.” Even so, to hold a sheet of thin glass with one hand against the leaf of a book while the other does the tracing is no easy task when having to be done continuously. Even worse, however, were the conditions in those libraries and archives where tracing was not allowed and there was no alternative but to hold the page vertically with one hand while the mark was drawn by eye with the other. Such copies drawn by eye may seem to be of slight use, Heawood states, “but those now presented have stood the test well, on being confronted with later tracings.”  Subsequent generations of scholars cannot but be impressed by and indebted to the pioneers who devotedly carried out this massive feat of tracing, drawing, collecting, collating, and then publishing the results of their labor. Nevertheless, one must not remain blind to the inherent disadvantages under which they worked, their task frequently made worse by print obscuring the visibility through the paper, by tracing paper slipping, by problems of manipulation in the tightly-bound volumes, and by the subsequent retracing and scaling required for final photography. Since their day attempts have been made to lighten the task and to seek means to improve the process of transmission. Among the most successful to date has been the use of beta-radiography. To obtain a watermark image by this method, a polymer sheet impregnated with Carbon-14 is placed in contact with that part of the sheet of paper where the watermark is located. X-ray film is carefully aligned and placed against the other side of the paper. As the beta rays emitted from the polymer sheet pass more readily through the less-thick areas where the watermark wires made contact with the paper during manufacture, an identical, one-to-one image of the mark appears on the negative film.  A copy of Saxton’s Atlas recently inspected by eye appeared to have the watermark of the type already noted by Heawood on many of the pages on which the maps were printed. When a sample of these was subjected to beta-radiography, however, the watermark was as illustrated (see figures 7 and 8). A search in the Heawood archives has revealed that the Saxton Atlas from which he traced his watermark number 1348 is the British Museum’s copy and a recent inspection of this confirms the two watermarks to be similar.6 This revelation is, in no way, intended to disparage Heawood’s magnificent achievement; it is much easier for the human eye to recognize something after having seen it before. Moreover, it is probable that Heawood was unable to conceptualize and comprehend an image which would appear to him too improbable and bizarre so that his mind rejected the evidence of his own eyes with the result that he omitted the abdominal left part of the figure.  Since this watermark has never been correctly traced and illustrated before, its peculiar motif calls for an explanation. From their appearance in Italy, c. 1282, the purpose of watermarks in paper has been to communicate a message.7 In most cases they have served as trade marks to identify the papermaker but the choice of design was, and is, a personal, idiosyncratic matter. In all forms of art, and the present context is no exception, the depiction of the human body is the most interesting but also the most difficult. To the mould maker, working with thin copper wire, it is especially so and he has only infrequently and hesitatingly accepted the challenge so that when compared with the total number of motifs, there are not many figures representing the entire human form.8 Even more significant therefore, is the concept that “there are no watermarks without meaning.”9 Here, admittedly, one is not entering the realm of an exact science, but the emblematic and symbolic character of watermarks has been recognized for some time. Although the extreme ideas of Harold Bayley have proved unacceptable, nevertheless, in replying to them, it is now recognized that Briquet also took a too conservative view of filigranic symbolism.10 That there are symbolic links is no longer in doubt; that many of the motifs are drawn from Christianity, heraldry, and the everyday lives and working environment of the papermaking communities is now accepted. “The meanings of some have been lost, and some may yet be discovered through study,” asserts Allan H. Stevenson.11 With this last thought in mind it seems appropriate to look for a Christian symbolism in this watermark.12 Moreover, let the notion that this was a deliberately contrived piece of erotica, or that it was in any way salacious, be cast away immediately as the motif is in a group clearly recognizable as saintly persons, the cross and the halo providing unmistakable evidence of that. Even so, unraveling the true purport of such assertive masculinity in a saintly context is not without its problems.  It is true that in the lives of the saints incidents can be found in which garments were rent and given away. It was the case, for instance, in the life of St. Martin of Tours who, on passing through the gate of the city of Amiens, saw a beggar nearly naked.13 Martin, filled with pity, cut his mantle into two pieces, gave one to the beggar, and wrapped himself in the other piece. In his fortieth year he asked to be released from military service in the Roman army in order to devote the rest of his life to religion.14 The Emperor taunted him with wishing to run away from a battle which was imminent, but St. Martin declared he would stand naked and armed with the Cross alone in front of the army and not be afraid. The enemy, however, made peace before Martin’s offer could be put to the test. Although St. Martin was a French saint, his legend was a favorite one with Italian artists but the latter military incident is not the one favored by them in their paintings of him.  A comparable incident in the legend of St. Marcian must also be eliminated from the discussion.15 His great compassion for the poor made it impossible for him to refuse giving alms. On the day that one of his churches was to be consecrated he was approached in the street by a poor man in rags. Quickly he slipped off the tunic he wore under his sacerdotal vestments and handed it to the beggar, drawing his alb and chasuble about him to cover the deficiency of an undergarment. The church was crowded, the Emperor, the Empress, and most the whole city present. Marcian was bidden to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice in the new church he had built. Full of shame, he began, hoping that the folds of his chasuble would conceal the absence of a tunic but all saw him as clothed with a garment of pure gold. When the service was over so offended was the Patriarch with Marcian for having worn a garment more splendid than his own ecclesiastical vestments and more befitting to be worn by the Emperor, that he rebuked him. Marcian fell at the feet of his Patriarch, and denied that he had worn any such raiment. Then, furious at being spoken to falsely, for the Patriarch supposed that his eyes could not have been deceived, he caught Marcian by his vesture, and drew it aside, and behold: Marcian was bare of all garments but for his sacerdotal apparel.16 The problem of associating St. Marcian with the watermark is that he was a saint of Constantinople and, though honored in the Roman martyrology does not appear to be venerated to any great degree in Italy. Furthermore, and this applied equally to the almsgiving of St. Martin, the iconography of donation never appears to put the donor into the completely nude state. If this is so then an interpretation of the iconography of this particular watermark could well be sought among saints known to have phallic associations. Although such associations may appear strange and inappropriate they are not unknown and in certain cases may well represent the Christianization of an earlier pagan or priapic form of worship. According to G. R. Scott in his privately printed volume Phallic Worship, the edicts of the early church councils provide evidence of its antiquity and of its prevalence in many parts of Europe. In an Italian context, he discovered phallicism associated with St. Cosmas and St. Damian at the annual fair held in their honor in the inland town of Isernia, some fifty miles north of Naples.17 This central part of the southern Apennines is not known for papermaking and further south at Amalfi, where it was and where these two have a dedication, it is difficult to detect the presence of any phallicism, let alone any priapic association and no watermark remotely similar to a saint is recorded from the collection of Amalfi-made papers.18 Much more apparent and frequent is the association of St. Cosmas and St. Damian with medicine and healing.19 Furthermore, the symbols by which these two doctor saints may be recognized in art are peculiarly characteristic of that profession, namely, such objects as a lancet, a phial, a case of instruments, and a box of ointment. In general, over Europe these two saints became the patrons of the barber-surgeons, though in Sicily they are venerated by fishermen.20 Nowhere has a connection been established between Italian papermakers and Sts. Cosmas and Damian. The same may be said about St. Guignole, or Guingalois or Winwaloe as he is known in English, the other saint with phallic attribute discussed by Scott. A statue of this saint in a chapel dedicated to his worship near the town of Brest was believed to have powers of overcoming infertility.21 In addition, this saint is known to have been invoked by the wives of sailors to safeguard their husbands while at sea. Although St. Winwaloe is the patron of several churches and chapels in Brittany, a province known for papermaking, there does not appear to be any connection between his cult and the craft.22  In the wake of a recent publication entitled The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion,23 it may be timely to forsake the past literature’s association of our watermark with a “Saint nimbé” and offer a different explanation. Leo Steinberg’s thesis, supported by copious illustrations, is that Renaissance art produced a large amount of devotional imagery in which the genitalia of the Christ child and the dead and risen Christ receive such clear and demonstrative emphasis that one must recognize an ostentatio genitalium comparable to the ostentatio vulnerum, that is the showing forth of the wounds. “In many hundreds of pious religious works,” Steinberg continues, “from before 1400 well into the sixteenth century, the ostensive unveiling of the Child’s sex is the main action, thereby expressing the incarnation of God’s Son, and the emphasis recurs in images of the dead and risen Christ, all of which has been tactfully overlooked for half a millennium.” We are faced with the evidence that serious Renaissance artists obeyed imperatives deeper than modesty as Michelangelo did in 1514 when he undertook a commission to carve a risen Christ.24 Though now disfigured, the statue originally portrayed the risen Christ “in utter nakedness, complete in all the parts of man.” The representation in the watermark of a phallic tumescence may at first appear to be alien to the context being suggested. This is not so, however. There are several examples in Renaissance art referred to by Steinberg of the erection motif symbolizing post-mortem revival, the conquest of death, and a rising of resurgent flesh.25 Scott also voiced a similar opinion that “Phallicism was inevitably and universally associated with the concept of immortality.”26  The mould maker who formed the copper wires to create this image did so within the contemporary Christian ethos and it behooves us to see his act not in terms of the Counter Reformation or of later Christian iconography but of those of his own time and personal emotion. Who better, then, than the risen Christ to have as patron, protector, and overseer of his labors on this earth? The source of the paper on which this watermark appears is most likely to be Italy, and one can risk an even closer pinpoint in allocating its manufacture to one of the mills at Fabriano. There is evidence that some map printers preferred the large stout paper of Italian origin. Abraham Ortelius was a regular user of Italian paper. In England, Heawood has found Italian paper being used in copies of Saxton’s Atlas and suggests that on account of its excellent quality it may have been procured for presentation copies of the Atlas.27 It may well be that the survival of a number of Saxton Atlases into the present time owes much to that aspect of Italian paper. Acknowledgments  The author wishes to thank his colleagues Dr. Roberto Bruni, for his interest and assistance in many Italian aspects of this research; Francis Herbert, for steering him in the right direction through the archives of the Royal Geographic Society; and also the Leverhulme Trust, for financial support. This paper was first published in International Paper History, 1994. Vol. 1. 5–10.  [This version was first published in The Exeter Papers, Proceedings of the British Association of Paper Historians, Fifth Annual Conference, 1994; Studies In British Paper History, Vol. II. 2001. ED.]  Notes 1. Charles Moïse Briquet, Les Filigranes Dictionnaire Historique des Marques du leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu’en 1600, Leipzig, 1923. See also The New Briquet jubilee edition. General editor J.S.G. Simmons. Editor Allan Stevenson, The Paper Publications Society, Amsterdam, 1968. 2. Edward Heawood, Watermarks Mainly of the 17th and 18th Centuries, The Paper Publications Society, Hilversum, 1950.3. Ibid., 23. Edward Heawood, Sources of Early English Paper Supply, The Library, 4th Series, 10, 1930, 453.4. Aurelio and Augusto Zonghi’s Watermarks, The Paper Publications Society, Hilversum,1953, TAV. PL.121, Nos. 1693 and 1694.5. Heawood, Watermarks, 22.6. J.B. Hartley and William Ravenhill, The Gift of a Saxton Atlas to the University of Exeter. Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries, 34, part 5, 1980, 194-201. Royal Geographical Society, Edward Heawood Archives, AR.54 Box 1 British Museum, Prints and Drawings, 172.d.4.7. A. Horodisch, "On the Aesthetics of Ancient Watermarks", in The Briquet Album, edited by E.J. Labarre, The Paper Publications Society, Hilversum, 1952, p. 111.8. Ibid., 110.9. A.F.Gasparinetti, "On the Adoption of a Universal Terminology for Watermarks", in The Briquet Album, 123.10. Harold Bayley, A New Light on the Renaissance Displayed in Contemporary Emblems, 1909, reissued New York, 1967. C. M. Briquet, "Les Filigranes ont-ils un sens caché? Une signification mystique ou symbolique", in Briquet’s Opuscula: The Complete Works of Dr. C.M. Briquet without Les Filigranes, The Paper Publications Society, Hilversum,1955. 321-330.11. Allan H. Stevenson, "Briquet and the Future of Paper Studies". Introduction to Briquet’s Opuscula, XLV and XLVI.12. Alesandre Nicolai, Le Symbolisme Chrétien dans les Filigranes du papier , Grenoble, 1936.13. S. Baring Gould, Lives of the Saints, vol. 13, London, 1877, 242.14. Lucy Menzies, The Saints in Italy: A Book of Reference to the Saints in Italian Art and Dedication, London, 1924, p. 298. 15. Gould, Lives of the Saints, vol. 1, 134-136.16. Acta Sanctorum, 1 Caput 111 (Antwerp, 1643) pp. 612-613. Impression Anastatique, Bruxelles, 1965.17. George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship, A History of Sex and Rites in Relation to the Religions of all Races from Antiquity to the Present Day, London, 1941, 244, 248-253. I am indebted to J. S. G. Simmons for calling my attention to this volume.18. Nicola Milano fu Filippo, Della Fabricazione della Carta in Amalfi, Amalfi, 1965. 19. George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art, 4 vols, Florence, 1952, 1965, 1978, 1985. Vol. 1, 290- 294. Vol. 3, 241-244. Louis Reau, Iconographie de l’Art Chrétien, Paris, 1958.20. Italy Geographical Handbook Series, Naval Intelligence Division B. R.517A, 2 (1944), 293.21. Scott, Phallic Worship, 297.22. Gilbert H. Doble, Saint Winwaloe Cornish Saint Series, No. 4, second edition, Truro 1940.23. Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, London, 1984. The author is indebted to Professor Luigi Balsamo of Instituto di Biblioeconomia e Palegraphia, University of Padua, for drawing his attention to Steinberg’s thesis. 24. Ibid., 118-119. “… even now the original statue in Santa Maria sopra Minerva (Rome) stands disfigured by a brazen breechclout”. 25. Ibid., 82-90.26. Scott, Phallic Worship, 57.27. Edward Heawood, Early English Paper Supply, 453.